Daily Bread

This story in the 7th chapter of the book of Mark about the Syrophoenician woman is fascinating in many ways. The woman is a gentile and comes to Jesus to beg him to heal or deliver her daughter from demonic oppression. What is Jesus' response to such a plea for help? He likens her to a dog. "it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." Imagine, you humbly approach Jesus the Christ and ask for a miracle, for mercy, and He turns you away. But was He truly turning this woman away, or testing her faith?
I believe this story makes it quite obvious that Jesus was testing the faith of this non-Jew. Seeing if she had the faith in Him to continue to seek deliverance in the face of all odds, to refuse to be denied. Thankfully, this woman did have faith as her response shows: "Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." Jesus then told her "For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter." And verse 30 shows us that she went home and indeed found her daughter just as Jesus had said.

There are several nuances that reside within this story that are easy to skip over if we don't read carefully. First, it is incredible that Jesus likens healing and demonic deliverance to bread. Bread, today and back then, was a staple in ones diet. You ate a lot of bread just like we do today. It was common, not extravagant. Was Jesus therefore saying that these miraculous works are supposed to be as common as our daily intake of bread? Why Not? If they're supposed to be a rare random phenomena for a select few He could have easily likened miracles to another food group. Instead, He chose bread. This is perfectly inline with how common His miraculous works were. As long as there was faith in those asking, He gave freely.

The second nuance that sticks out is this principle: Healing may tarry, but if we continue to believe for it, if we refuse to be denied, it will come. This gentile woman is a perfect example of one who approached Jesus and boldly asked Him for a miracle and even after being denied one, asked again. How many of us have asked God for a miracle, have petitioned His holiness, and given up when we were denied, or it didn't happen right away? How many of us would have received that which we sought if we hadn't given up? The Syrophoenician woman didn't give up. She had faith, and Jesus worked a miracle on her behalf.

If We Truly Live to Love Christ, Our Love Will Show The World Why We Live.
-Jared Carlson